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Stefan Simanowitz Profile picture
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22 Dec, 7 tweets, 5 min read
The Prime Minister of Britain
In this clip👆, @BorisJohnson tries to laugh it off - a tactic that has worked for him all his life - but then he realises no one is laughing any more

We know he ruffled his hair just before the briefing

We know he doesn’t believe what he says

It’s not funny. It’s sinister.
THREAD 👇
The reason that the PM will say he laughed was because he was being asked a question about #Brexit at a #COVID19 briefing. But with days to go before the 31st deadline @peston’s question couldn’t have come as too big a surprise.

It certainly wasn’t funny.
#BorisJohnson’s response looks even worse from this angle

So does his hair!

“He looks as if he brushes his hair with a toffee apple,”
@paulwelbourne1 observed

Note how @BorisJohnson sees the camera, stops grinning & looks down at his papers.
“When asked about #Brexit the PM laughed. Nothing about the situation is funny, except when his touch makes it darkly ridiculous. He has a quality of anti-gravitas that extends to the whole cabinet. Their collective inadequacy is hiding in plain sight.” theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
In 1994, Christopher Nolan established 7 principles of public live for MPs:

1) Selflessness
2) Integrity
3) Objectivity
4) Accountability
5) Openness
6) Honesty
7) Leadership

How many of these qualities do our current Cabinet possess?

Could the #BumblingStrategy be a tactic?!

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More from @StefSimanowitz

Stefan Simanowitz Profile picture
21 Dec
"The govt assured us that the #COVID datastore would be unwound at the end of the pandemic & the data destroyed. They also said any extension would go out to public tender.

All of that has now turned out to be false"
@maryftz & @cori_crider #PalantirPlan.
opendemocracy.net/en/ournhs/cont…
2/. The #PalantirPlan was first properly revealed after another legal challenges by @openDemocracy & @Foxglovelegal in the UK & @nytimes in the US

They revealed that Palantir ‘won’ contracts at the same time to run #COVID19 data stores for the NHS & HHS
3/. Unfortunately, the detail of how much of the UK’s ‘health data’ is being collated by #Palantir has been redacted from the contract

What possible reason could there be for wanting to keep these hidden?

The answer lies in the #PalantirPlan.
#COVID19 #coronavirus #COVID20 ImageImageImageImage
Read 5 tweets
Stefan Simanowitz Profile picture
21 Dec
1/. Extraordinary!

Sir Patrick Vallance yet again washes his hands entirely of any responsibility

Here, @PippaCrerar asks why the whole country isn't in lockdown

“The Tier decisions are not for me,” he says. Really?!

It’s a system designed to ensure the buck stops with no one
2/. I’m not a body language expert, but @uksciencechief’s habit of adjusting his glasses, looking away & um-Ing & ah-ing whenever he’s asked a penetrating question is getting wearily familiar.

Here is Vallance being questioned by @Jeremy_Hunt in May.
3/. In July, Vallance claimed he couldn't remember which date SAGE called for lockdown!

"The 18th or the 16th, I don't remember” he said

SAGE’s @JeremyFarrar says it was 13th

If these people’s memories are so bad now, imagine what they will be like in 2022 at a Public Inquiry!
Read 7 tweets
Stefan Simanowitz Profile picture
21 Dec
1/. “If you’re with someone you love hold them close. If you can’t be with someone you love or you’ve lost someone you love, take a moment after reading this. Close your eyes. Breath. And on think them. Think of their laugh, their touch. their soul."

These ladybirds made me cry.
2/. I’d cycled to Totteridge ystdy & spotted the ladybirds on a gravestone

It was a beautiful day

Beside the grave was a 2,000 year old yew tree

The tree - thought to be the oldest living thing in London - got me thinking about mortality & all the grief that this year has seen
3/. “The world’s more full of weeping than he can understand” (Yeats)

There is a lot of grief at the moment

Grief is important. It’s the flip side of love.

The more you deeply you love, the more deeply you must grieve

#CovidMemorialDay (1st Jan) hopes to help express our loss
Read 4 tweets
Stefan Simanowitz Profile picture
20 Dec
“He postpones necessary but unpalatable decisions, like a child pushing vegetables around a plate. He wants to be liked. He has no qualm about betraying people behind their backs, but he has a horror of upsetting them to their faces.” @rafaelbehr on the PM
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
2/. He loves to be upbeat

On 19/3 he said:

“We can turn the tide in 12 weeks. I’m absolutely confident that we can send coronavirus packing”

Earlier in the month, he boasted of shaking hands with #COVID patients

Days later, he was in hospital himself
3/. This interview shows is that the bumbling, tousled-hair comedy character, we’ve been watching for the last decade, is just that: a character

It also shows his approach to “politics & human nature”: that you can “make a good case for anything at all”.
Read 11 tweets
Stefan Simanowitz Profile picture
19 Dec
Wow!!!
Since July, the UK’s #COVID19 response is run by the secretive #JointBiosecurityCentre

The #JBC doesn’t share the science that leads them to take decisions

They haven’t released any minutes in 8 months

This lack of transparency makes proper scrutiny of govt decisions difficult
Decisions on UK #COVID19 response are formulated by the #JointBiosecurityCentre in Silver meetings

Recommendations are then made in Gold meetings & implemented by the govt

No minutes
No scrutiny
No transparency
No accountability

Who is in the #JBC?

Cummings?
Warner brothers?
Read 5 tweets
Stefan Simanowitz Profile picture
18 Dec
In #Turkey, the trial of imprisoned civil society leader Osman Kavala has just started

#Kavala faces absurd & baseless charges

@amnesty calls for his immediate & unconditional release & for all charges against him to be dropped.
#FreeOsmanKavala
amnesty.org/en/latest/news…
#OsmanKavala makes a statement at the opening of his trial in #Turkey.👇

“My ongoing imprisonment based on these strange accusations, so remote from the truth have become a kind of psychological torture. I hope this will be the last indictment of its kind.” #FreeOsmanKavala
“These allegations were made without any concrete evidence that I aimed at overthrowing the government that I knew of these events in advance. Without any material evidence, it was asserted that I had financed Gezi events.”

Summary of #OsmanKavala’s defence to absurd charges.👇
Read 6 tweets

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